What lies in the future for the gaming world? Well, better and more realistic graphics, physics and gameplay of course. Things like this are a given. I mean what trends will we see? Here's a few trends that I see becoming the norm as online gaming continues it's evolvotion.

Will consoles come to dominate the market as so many people have recently predicted? Somehow I doubt it. I have a few friends who are avid console gamers, and they swear that with the release of the X-Box, (It should be noted they also swore this sort of thing with the release of the Dreamcast, and the Praystation 2.) gamers will forsake their comfortable, technically obsolete PCs and move into the realm of Microsoft's new console.

I don't think so.

Each time a new console is slated for release, everyone is all drooly about the specs on the thing. 12 kabillion triangles/per second, highspeed internet connection, DVD player... etc etc..... Then the box comes out, and a few months later you really don't hear to much about it again... and certainly not for serious gaming. Consoles are relegated to the realm of what I would call the casual gamer for a few reasons:

1) Lack of upgradability. You are escentially working with a fixed platform. At least with current generation consoles, what you bought is pretty much what you've got with the exception of minor upgrades such as memory cards. This is an excellent thing for the game developers as they know exactly what they're writing for, and can tweak out their game to run like a bat outa hell and not worry about many compatibility issues, if any at all. (Someone explained to me that some new games will not work on old model Playstations, as Sony has upgraded the shipping version several times.) On the other hand, it's bad for the user..... you can't do any serious upgrades to your little box. Want a new video card? Outta luck. Consoles may feature cutting edge hardware when they first come out, but that quickly changes. (The upgrade problem does occur in computers as well, but at least you have SOMEWHERE to go.)

2) Lack of a good controller. Sorry console guys. You take even a lame gamer like me on in Quake III or UT with your little gamepad.... You're going to get spanked. I HATE console controllers, and I REALLY hate trying to play shooters with them. Gimme a good ol' WASD and a mouse anyday!.With PS2 keyboards listing at $68 US, and not shipping with the unit... Hmmmm... I don't know that all that many console users are going to bother picking one up.

3) Televisions. Gah. Some of the newer consoles look pretty good on a TV, but you REALLY need a monitor to get dead sexy graphics nice and crisp. Same deal with surfing the internet and getting email on your little box. You need a monitor. (Assuming your console supports a monitor) Reading a TV constantly is going to start hurting.... Of course you're now going to add $250-$350 for a good monitor to your console, and suddenly you're rapidly approaching the cost of a new basic computer. And you need somewhere to put the console, ruining the whole idea of a small gaming/entertainment box you can leave near or on top of the television.

4) Lack of versatility. (This sorta links up with #1) Admittedly, what consoles are designed to do they do do very well. What they're not designed for they don't do. I doubt for instance that we'll ever see MS Word released for a console. Won't be seeing Photoshop or web design software either. Consoles play games. With a few small exceptions such as playing CDs or DVDs and reading some email, without making them quite a bit more expensive I can't see them having the capabilities of a computer. I also can't see console users dropping hundreds of dollars on software that isn't games......

Now, all the bad stuff aside there are some good things about consoles. Some very good things actually.

1) Reliablity. Consoles, due to the closed design of them are generally very reliable. (See, there's always a good thing to balance out the bad things!) There's few moving parts and they've had the heck tested out of them before shipping the units. I am however wondering about the Xbox with it's hard drive. Putting an easily damaged device (And prone to failure device) into a console may or may not be a good idea... It'll be interesting to see if they have many returns on these bad boys once they actually ship. Games for consoles also tend to be fairly reliable and bug free. The company that releases a game knows damned well that, unlike PC games, you can't release a broken game and patch it later. Now this may change again with the Xbox. Potentially you could download updates and store them on the hard drive. (Uh oh.......Watch out console world!)

2) Ease of use. Plug it in, start playing. That's the long and short of it. Consoles are much easier to get up and running than a computer.

3) Inexpensive. Considering that a good gaming machine is going to run you around $2,000 CDN without a monitor, and that a decent console like a PS2 is going to run you around $400-$500 (Unless you're one of these idiots who went out and bought one for $1,000 when they first came out. In which case you need a good kick in the teeth and a life. Idiot.) You also don't need to drop $300 on a good monitor.. After all, the vast majority of people already have a television.

4) Tons of games. Consoles do tend to have tons of games avaliable. (Well, not that computers don't as well.)

Anyhows, lets get off the topic of consoles and onto more interesting things.

In the next few years I see more and companies moving towards a "pay as you go gaming" model. Why? For one thing, potential for more money. And as we all know, big companies looooooove having millions of dollars rolling in every month from a game. Everquest and Ultima online have approximately 150,000 players online each.... Each of those players is paying $10.00/month USD to play. That's one HELL ovalotta money. Every month. And 0% pirating.. Which takes us to our first point.

Also, difficulty in pirating. With the growth of Massively Multiplayer games such as Everquest, more people are role playing online, and the MM model is spreading to other genres. Planetside is a MM first person shooter. Soverign is a MM real time strategy. Jumpgate is a MM flightsim/trading game. No matter how good the protection is on a new product, it's soon cracked and legions of gamers pirate it. Tribes 1 had no protection whatsoever. (I mean, if it's a good game people will buy it right? Wrong.) Dynamix calculated (You have to figure they're guessing high.) a 7 pirated to 1 purchased ratio. That's a horrible ratio, especially for such an excellent and long running game.

Make it a pay as you go (ex. Monthly visa) and it's much harder to pirate. In fact, if you were playing something like Everquest there really wouldn't be any reason to do so.. When you get caught they kill your account... and you loose your character. Not to mention getting charged with credit card fraud. I see more and more companies moving this way in the gaming as well as application market. (Microsoft's .net initiative would be an excellent example.)

MM games are also alot of fun, and make the entire experiance much more realistic. You can pick Quake III or Tribes 2 for a few hours and play... and you get into them. On the other hand, when you play those games it's a 20 minute fix. You play the game, get your score.When you're playing a MM guy you are basically living it. You play.. and play... and pay.. and pay.... You're working on a living character and damn... It's adictive. (Hence the oh so popular "Evercrack" nick)

Along with MM games I see squad based shooters being a big thing. When Tribes 1 came out, I predicted that the gaming world would move away from deathmatch and one on one games and the squad stufff would become much more popular. Tribes & Counter-Strike proved me right. People like playing with their buddies, and being part of a team turns online gaming into a completely different experiance. There's something to be said about old school deathmatch. When the smoke clears there's a clear winner. A hero as it were. But with team based games I think it's much harder. You have to co-ordinate with more players. And you either live as a team or die as individuals. And every game is diferent with that number of people involved. Tribes 2 was released and is huge. Halo, Planetside and Teamfortress 2 (If it's ever released) are going to push the genre to new heights.

Superstar professional gamers and teams. As gaming has grown we've started to see people actually able to make money at it. Lots of money. There's very, very few of these people in the world today. But the number will grow as time passes. I think we'll also start to see professional gamers eventually gain the same recognition as other athletes. Might take some years but I do truly believe it will happen. We've seen the likes of Fatality and Thresh and we'll see more. We'll also start to see more Allstar teams as the squad based stuff becomes bigger.

Less companies making games. We've been seeing lately more and more of the smaller companies being bought up by the big conglomorates. (ex. Microborg) In one way this may be a good thing, as larger companies obviously have more money to put behind marketting and devlopment of new products. On the other hand, creativity may be stifled if the new "division" isn't allowed to keep it's anonymity and independent thought and design process. Nothing quite like having to approve every step with big brother upstairs to kill you.

High speed connections. Right now LPB's rule the online battlefield. Now, I know all of you HPBs are going to be upset about that comment, and try to kill me because of it. Luckily I'm an LPB so you'll never be able to hit me. (Mmmwwhahawhahahah!) It is the truth though, and with more and more people (Gamer's especially) getting high speed cable or DSL connections the competion is getting stiffer and more even online. When I first started playing alot online I was an ISDN connection (Yes, never been an HPB baby!) and no one else had high speed save the university LAN guys. Gaming was MUCH easier back then, trust me. :) Untill we all get fibre connections it'll never be as nice as a LAN, but it is getting better and better.

Oh yeah, and in closing an asteroid is heading directly for your house.

So ends my predicitions.

Marauder out.